Take the upside and you own the downside

I was annoyed by this inane Reuters article on the fate of the UK's gold stash:

An independent Scotland could lay claim to a part of the United Kingdom's 310-tonne gold reserves if votes go in favour of the "Yes" campaign this month, with ownership of Britain's bullion hoard up for negotiation along with other assets.

If I were Scotland, I'd run as far as possible from the £7.8bn pile of gold bricks. The reason I'd do this is because if I take on a fraction of the assets of the UK, I have no argument against also taking on its liabilities:

As of Q1 2013 UK government debt amounted to £1,377 billion, or 88.1% of total GDP, at which time the annual cost of servicing the public debt amounted to around £43bn, or roughly 3% of GDP.

Why would you take (say) 10% of £7.8bn when you'd also have to assume 10% of a £1400bn liability? You'd have to be stark staring bonkers. Alex Salmond isn't a rocket scientist, but even he would realise how dumb this would be.